7 Marks of a Grace-Driven Wife

There is a longing within the heart of every woman to experience a love that touches the deepest parts of her being.  She wants to know a love that makes her feel secure, free, inspired, accepted, rescued, and adored.  When she experiences that kind of love, her heart comes alive.  That kind of love and so much more exists within the heart of God for her. Jesus expressed the heart, desire, and love of God for man and woman on the cross.   As a woman intimately experiences the depths of that love, her heart can be set free to love in the same way.  For a wife this becomes the source of her passion as she loves her husband.

²² Wives, yield to your husbands, as you do to the Lord, ²³ because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. And he is the Savior of the body, which is the church. ²⁴ As the church yields to Christ, so you wives should yield to your husbands in everything.

Ephesians 5:22-24  New Century Version

³¹ The Scripture says, “So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body.” ³² That secret is very important—I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ But each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and a wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 5:31-33  New Century Version

The marriage relationship can be one of the most powerful pictures of the relationship between Christ and His bride.  The husband demonstrates the overflowing, initiating, and one-way love of God.  Love, truth, mercy, grace all flow from Him without need for anything in return.  He is and needs nothing for what He gives.  He delights in what giving and loving.  The grace-driven husband pictures the heart and actions of Christ for the one he loves.

The grace-driven wife has an equally powerful role in demonstrating the wonder of God in her marriage.  She pictures the joy of receiving grace.  By design, women have a greater capacity for demonstrating this love than men. As she experiences the unfathomable depths of God’s love for her in Christ, she can express that love to the one she has been made one with.  She will yield and love her husband as she does to the Lord.  As a grace-driven wife, she can love like this:

• She can overflow with gratefulness because of what she is receiving from God

The wife that is experiencing the grace of God in forgiveness and knowing she has been made righteous by Him through faith has a powerful capacity to love.  The more she receives the more she can give.  She has been made beautiful by Him and as a result, she overflows with gratefulness.  This becomes a powerful force in her marriage.  With her deepest needs met, she can love her husband without expectation for him to meet those needs.  She is free to be grateful instead of demanding. She can be appreciative instead of complaining.  She can love from a full heart.

• She is passionate about reminding her husband of who he is in Christ

Jesus said that the one who experiences life in Him will have ignited within are wellspring of that life.  A wife that is experiencing love is filled with desire to love.  She knows the wonder of being free and wants others to know that same freedom.  She is most passionate about her husband knowing that freedom.  She knows where he struggles, what he fears, and what he tells few others.  She knows when he needs to be encouraged and she overwhelms him with her words of hope, love, and praise.

• She is driven to help her husband know how much he is admired, respected, and appreciated

The book of Proverbs in Scripture says that one of the most distasteful things a wife can do is to complain.  It says that a wife that is demanding, critical, and ungrateful is like a dripping faucet!  A wife whose heart is filled from God however is free to express the kind of love that truly ignites the heart of a man.  A man’s heart thrives on admiration, respect, and appreciation.  He runs to it.  He relishes in it.  He inhabits praises that come to him.  The grace-driven wife gives admiration, respect, and appreciation not because of what her husband has done, but because of what she has experienced in Christ.  She gives what is needed from what she receives in her own heart.

• She is able to serve and give herself away without expectation of return

The purest demonstration of love is one that is given with no demands.  Love that comes with expectation of getting something in return is not sincere.  Love that is withheld until it gets what it wants is not love.  The most beautiful love from a man or a woman is one-way love without demands or expectation.  The grace-driven wife sets her husband free having to do anything to earn or payback her love.

• She is free to help her husband experience the ecstatic heights of being loved

The intimacy of heart and body is one of the delights of married love.  The wife that is free in heart from fear, guilt, expectation, and comparison is able to extravagantly give herself to the enjoyment of intimacy. She is also free and passionate about helping her husband experience unimaginable heights of that intimacy.  It is not a duty, it is her delight.  She finds joy in receiving delight and in bringing delight.

• She avoids complaining and criticism because they hinder her husband from being free

With overflowing love in her heart, the grace-driven wife considers all she says and does in relating to her husband.  She knows that what breaks his heart most are words of complaint and criticism.  She eliminates sarcasm, insults, and condemnation from her vocabulary and tone.  She does so not out of fear, not out of what benefit it may bring her, or not out of duty for God.  She delights in the rearrangement of her vocabulary.  She delights in speaking words of love.

• She can freely expose her heart

Many women struggle with completely opening their heart to their husband and sometimes rightfully so.  A grace-driven wife’s trust however is not based on the strengths of her husband.  She has found her identity in the One who will never leave her, forsake her, or condemn her.  Because she trusts Him and rests confidently in who she is in Him, she can take risks to open her heart to her husband.  She can talk about her hurts, fears, longings, and questions without fear.  She can express her joys and delights because she ultimately knows she has found a space of grace in Christ.

Find out what a Grace-Driven Husband looks like here: Grace-Driven Husband

9 Marks of a Grace-Driven Husband

There is a desperate need today for a new generation of husband. The land is crying out for a new breed of husband who will lead and love from the power of grace.  God has shown the prototype for this new man through the life of His Son.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy,cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰ for we are members of his body. ³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³² This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 5:25-33   New International Version

What Jesus did as the expression of grace from God is the model for every husband.  Because of Christ’s unfathomable accomplishment through the cross, we are made holy and pleasing to the Father.  We, the undeserving and sinful, are forgiven and made holy by Christ.  By accepting this love by faith, we are free from having to impress, appease, or fear God.  Instead we are free to rest in Him, celebrate Him, and love Him!  This is the wonder of grace!  This is what Christ did as Groom for us, his bride.  This is what grace-driven husbands do for their wives.  The new breed of husband will live and love from what He has experienced in Christ.  He will be a grace-driven man that loves like this:

• He lavishes her with the overwhelming overflow of grace he is receiving.  

Genuine love can only happen as overflow from our life.  That kind of love is selfless and sacrificial.  Any action that is done in order to get something is not love.  The grace-driven husband is experiencing that kind of love from God.  He is free from his own guilt and pressure to have to perform to appease God.  As a result of his great joy in receiving that love, he is able to have it overflow from him to his wife.

• He loves in a one way direction with no expectation of return.

One-way love is the passion of the grace-driven husband. One-way love flows outwardly with no demand for response. Because the grace-driven husband loves from overflow, he is able to love with no expectation of return.  His joy has already been fulfilled by what he has received from God.  Now love is able to leave from him in a one-way direction.  He can love even if it is rejected.  He can even if it is not recognized.  He can love even when it demands sacrifice.

• He takes great joy in sacrificing, laying down his rights, setting aside his preferences so that she might know how deeply she is loved.

The grace-driven husband knows that what filled him was the one-way love from God. He longs for his wife to experience that same love from him and from God. As a result, he finds great delight in rearranging his life, humbling himself, sacrificing his preferences so that his wife might experience that love.  His passion is for her to know how deeply she is loved and set free in his love and the love of the Father.

• He consistently reminds her of the oneness, acceptance, tenderness, love, and forgiveness that is hers with him.

The grace-driven husband is purposeful about reassuring his wife.  He knows her struggles, fears, weaknesses, and faults.  Instead of anger, condemnation, and criticism, he reminds her that in him there is complete forgiveness, freedom, and oneness – no matter what has happened.

• He reminds her of how greatly she is loved, accepted, forgiven, treasured, and made perfect by Christ.

Every follower of Christ needs reminders of the forgiveness and righteousness that is theirs because of Him.  The grace-driven husband knows that beyond his wife experiencing his love, she is made complete when she experiences the depth of God’s love for her.  He is determined to help her experience the fullness of freedom in Christ at the core of her being – at the place of her questions, doubts, fears, hurts, and failures. This becomes his all-consuming direction, passion, and determination.

• He creates an environment of trust, acceptance, favor, forgiveness, and intimacy

In our walk with Christ we have to be reminded that we free to come boldly to the throne of grace.  We have to be reminded that we are forgiven, free, and without fault.  We have to be reminded of the intimacy that He has created for us.  Grace-driven husbands initiate and create that kind of environment for their wives.  They create spaces where their wives are free to talk, open their heart, be heard, and to be loved.

• He is driven to rescue her from the enslaving voices, and thoughts of comparison, condemnation, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and rejection.

Jesus said that He had come to set the captives free.  Those captives were enslaved with voices of guilt, shame, comparison, rules, comparison, and judgment.  They were the ones who thought they could never be loved by God and accepted.  Jesus had come to set them free from these condemning voices!  The grace-driven husband seeks to help his wife be free from those same enslaving voices.  Many husbands do not realize how deeply their wives struggle with these voices.  They cry out to women from media, the world, and from inside the heart of every woman.  What can free them is the heroic husband who will overwhelm the voices with their words and actions of love, assurance, acceptance, and grace!

• Instead of her weaknesses and faults, he sees her as forgiven, free, and loved.

The glory of Jesus’ work is that He presents us to Himself without spot, wrinkle, or blemish.  He removes our sin, guilt, and shame.  If we hold on to them, they age us.  They disfigure us.  He not only forgives, but He makes us without fault or blemish.  He makes us beautiful!  The grace-driven husband does the same for his wife.  He forgives her faults before they happen.  He makes right what has been wrong.  He removes what ages and disfigures.  He brings beauty!

• He avoids words, actions, and attitudes that keep her heart from being free.

Because the grace-driven husband knows the heart of his wife; because he knows its frailty, wonder, and beauty, he is careful in how he speaks to her.  He speaks with words and tone that will reassure and give hope.  He avoids words and tones that belittle, insult, and hurt.  He avoids sarcasm, criticism, and words that hurt.  He knows that above all he must help his wife be free.  The grace-driven husband guards all that he says not as a set of rules to keep or in hopes of getting something in return.  He guards what he says out of love for his wife.  He guards and protects that she might live free!

Find out what a Grace-Driven Wife looks like here: Grace-Driven Wife

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5 Things That Reveal Your Church Doesn’t Really Believe in Grace

Almost every church will say they believe in grace.  They will talk about it, preach about, and even sing about it.  But if you listen a little longer and deeper into what is being said, you’ll often discover another message.  And what you hear may be contrary to the truth about grace.

The Bible’s message of grace proclaims that while we were still sinners God demonstrated the fullness of His love for us.  He sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins.  There, payment was made for our sins so that our guilt could be taken away.  Also righteousness was given so that the pressure to have to be good enough could be taken away.  Forgiveness and righteousness gained for us by Christ!  Those who receive this grace by faith can experience the freedom and joy of being made right with God! No more guilt.  No more pressure.  No more laws to fulfill.  Love comes bursting forth and fulfills more than the law ever could!  What grace!

Is this what your church says about grace? Sometimes what sounds like grace in many churches is only window dressing for a very different message that they call “good news”.  They believe in Jesus, His death on the cross, His resurrection, and faith.  They say that coming to Him by faith is one thing and living by faith is something different.  This other message says that God is only pleased with you when you do good things.  It says that He is generally angry and waits for us to do what will please Him and unlock the blessings of heaven.  It comes in messages that sometimes sound like this:

1.      The more you read your Bible, pray, give, and serve, the more God will be pleased with you.

The essence of the “Good News” is that while we were not pleasing to God because of our sin, Christ died for us. As a sacrifice for us to God, He fully satisfied the Father.  His sacrifice made us fully pleasing to the Father.  There is no more blessing to give beyond what was expressed at the cross!  To say that there is something else that I must do to be more pleasing is to insult the sacrifice of Christ!  To say that there is more to receive beyond being made pleasing to the Father is to call unholy what He accomplished!

 2.      God will honor you if you will honor Him.

There are so many messages that the church sends out that sound right.  This one is similar to: “God helps those who help themselves” and the more subtle version that says, “The more you do to please God, the more you will receive from Him.”  Each of these is rooted in the idea that God gives good based on good behavior.  This is how the world thinks.  This is how employers think, schools think, governments think, and how we naturally think.

The wonder of grace is that God sacrifices for those who are undeserving of His love.  He pours out the fullness of Himself on the unfaithful, sinning, and unrepentant.  He does what is unexpected.  He invites the broken and rejected to receive what He has overwhelmingly done.  He gives rightness with Him through His grace shown to us and received only through the avenue of faith.  We think, “Do to get”.  He removes the barrier and overwhelming gives what we could never get.

 3.      You need to be constantly evaluating whether or not you are doing enough for God.

Many Christians live with the obsessive concern that they are not doing enough for God.  They live in fear of His judgment, withdrawal of blessing, and in missing out on His will.  They approach Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, witnessing, giving as duties that must be accomplished to appease God.  The messages they hear in church confirm their greatest fear.  Gone is genuine desire for any of these or any other dimensions to the Christian life.  Relating to their spouse, kids, family, and neighbors are reduced to guilt-based commands that have to be done “for God”.  And when they realize that their motivations are not always sincere, they are filled with even greater depths of guilt and promise to do better.

It was for this reason that Jesus said He had come to set the captives free!  Grace says that the Father has made perfect what I never could!  Grace sets me free from the pressure to have to be righteous enough!  He has made me holy, blameless, and without fault!

 4.      God tests you to see if you will be faithful.

Many take the words from the first chapter in the book of James in Scripture as indication that God brings trials in our life to test our faithfulness.  Like an employer, teacher, or military leader they assume that they face trials to see if they will pass the test and find the favor of God.   The reason that Jesus went to the cross is because we did not measure up!  We could not pass the test!  We had failed!  The Good News is not that we are given a second chance at being good.  The Good News is that we are set free from having to measure up!  We are filled up, leveled off, and overflowing with the righteousness of Christ!

Trials are not to see if I will be faithful.  Trials reveal that He is faithful!  They break my addiction to self-obsession, guilt, and my attempts to be good enough.  Grace fills you completely!  Faith grows in my as I receive more of the wonder of what He has done for me!  He is faithful!

 5.      You need to become more like Jesus.

One of the most common expressions to come out of churches today is the charge that we should do all we can to become more like Jesus.  Many live their life of faith according to this scale.  The problem is you are left to either conclude you still fall short or even worse that you somehow have achieved some level of being more like Christ because of the things you do.

The greatness of grace is that through faith I am made fully whole, perfect, holy, and as much like Christ as I could ever be!   The life I now live is lived by faith toward the Son of God!  I live learning who I have been made.  I learn to live out what has already been made true.

As you look for a church and body of believers to build you up in the faith, look for one that will affirm the fullness of what Christ accomplished on the cross.  Look for one that will remind you of the greatness of what has been given to you by grace.  Look for one that will encourage you to humbly grow your faith.  Look for one that will motivate you to receive what has already been given!

5 Things to Look for When Dating and Considering a Mate

Dating and looking for that perfect life partner can be one of the most mysterious, wonderful, and confusing experiences.  Even if you are walking through the experience wanting God’s best, the process can be challenging.  How do I know they are “the one”?  Are they God’s will for me? Will they forever love me?  Will I forever love them?  The experience becomes even more confusing once the exhilarating emotions of romance are awakened.

For the follower of Jesus Christ, there is help!  There is the instruction of Scripture, the motivation of the Spirit of God inside, the counsel of godly friends, and the guidance of parents.  Along with those, the following 5 factors will go along way in helping you know that you are on the path to the right person.

These 5 are based in the assumption that you are already experiencing the greatness of God’s grace for you in Jesus Christ.  You are looking to Him for your identity, worth, acceptance, approval, forgiveness, and rightness with God.  You are in the process of receiving this grace by faith and actively growing in that faith.  As you do these 5 will greatly help in your dating and discovery of the “one” God has for you!

1.   The core of their identity is rooted in Jesus Christ.

They know Jesus Christ and find in Him their worth, love, approval, acceptance, hope, and life.   They know to look to Him instead of you for all that they need in life.  Of course there will be times that as a couple you will give acceptance and approval to one another, but it is not healthy to look for those things in one another.  Those core elements of the soul can only be experienced in receiving relationship with Jesus Christ.

2.   They overflow with expressions of God’s grace.

Someone who is truly experiencing grace from God in their life will overflow with that grace.  It can be seen in their relationships and in their response to the realities of life.  Look for someone who has the fruit of the fullness of God’s Spirit within them.  Do they have patience with others?  Do they forgive others?  Do they go out of their way to love those who may be hard to love?  Do they find joy in serving others?  Do they respect and care for their parents?  Do they enjoy working hard?  Do they notice when others are in need?  These are the areas where the reality of what they believe will be seen!

3.    They make it their goal to help you see how much you are loved by God.

Life and relationships are not easy.  Along the way you will need encouragement.  You’ll need reminders that you are loved not just by them but by God.  You’ll need to be reminded that you are accepted, forgiven, treasured, favored, blessed, and loved by the ultimate Grace-giver.  As you look for someone you will share your life with, look for someone who knows how to give you that kind of encouragement.

4.    You will find great joy in serving, loving, and reminding them who they are because of Christ.

As a receiver of grace you will overflow with the same grace and love you receive.  The person you unite with should be one who readily accepts the love of Christ through you.  Do they enjoy being reminded of who they are in Christ?  Are they humbled by His love?  Do they regularly express gratefulness to God for what He has given them?   Will you find great joy in reminding and showing them how much they have because of Christ?  Will you find joy in serving them even when it is not appreciated?  This level of love is the often the make or break moment for couples.  In order for you to not reach frustration and burn-out, you’ll need to find great joy in serving and sacrificing for this one who is now part of you.  Your ability to do so will say more about your experience with grace than theirs.

5.     Someone who will honestly and humbly share every part of their life with you.

Marriage is the joining of two lives.  Two personalities, histories, families, futures, joys, longings, fears, loves, weaknesses, strengths all become one.  In order for two lives to experience the greatest depths of marital oneness, there must be an openness about all things.  Do they talk openly about their fears, weaknesses, failures, and past?  Do they talk openly about their relationship with God?  Are they expressive about their longings, hopes, and dreams?  The heart that is truly freed by the love of God finds the freedom to open every part of their heart.

Study with Babies Unlock Origins of Morality

In this fascinating study with babies, researchers are discovering what the Scriptures record. Brilliant study!

What voices do you hear when you fail?

Everyone has a voice track that plays in their mind.  It runs as a commentary on life giving us opinion about what the things we say and do.  The track has been running for so long that we accept it as part of who we are.  We listen to it, interact with it, and believe what it tells us.  There are even times when the track seems to speak louder.  Times when it seems to shout with bold authority demanding that we listen and fall to its declaration.  One of those times that it shouts the loudest is when we fail.

You know the moment.  That awareness that you’ve just done something you shouldn’t have.  That moment you realize you’ve hurt someone or you’ve done the very thing you said you would not do again.

What do you hear in that moment?

What you hear and what you say to yourself in that moment are critical.  The line of commentary that you allow to play will determine your future.  It will either rescue you or take you further as hostage to your failure and sin.  What you listen to will determine if you will you become a hostage and addict.

The typical commentary that runs in the minds of most people goes something like this:

• What a loser.
• You’re such an idiot.
• You can’t do anything right.
• Who could ever love anyone like you.
• This is why your life is such a mess.
• This is what will keep you from ever getting anywhere with God.
• And you call yourself a Christian.

This commentary is common to the experience of being human. It doesn’t just happen the minds of people who don’t know God.  Christians hear these voices too! To make matters worse, many think these voices are from God.  They assume this is what He is saying to them.  So they cower in fear, guilt, shame, and a determination to do better only to find themselves failing again and again and again.  The voice they think that should free them only leads them to greater pain, inability, weakness, and failure.

These are not the voice patterns of God!

No matter what you’ve been told, these are not the voice inflections, thoughts, and intentions of God to you.  Jesus expressed the heart of God to man and made it clear what His intentions were toward man:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.  Luke 4:18-19

This is the tone of voice of God.  He speaks with passion, compassion, desire to rescue, and shouts of love favor!  Jesus demonstrated the reality of God’s heart when He endured the suffering of the cross.  He showed the depth of His love as He became the One to take upon Himself the guilt, condemnation, and weight of our failures.  He allowed Himself to take the direct hit of the voices of that accuse and destroy.  He absorbed them all.  And He did it so that we could be free from them.  With great confidence the apostle Paul would say that as a result of what Jesus did:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus  Romans 8:1

The penalty, punishment, weight, and guilt are gone.  We no longer have to listen to the voices!

This doesn’t mean that the voices stop.  They have played for so long in our minds, that it is often difficult to not listen to them.  What has happened however is that a new voice track has begun to play.  This track is completely different than anything we have ever heard before.  It is the opposite of the old voice track.  This track is the voice of God.  When we accept what Jesus did on the cross personally and intimately into our hearts this new voice track speaks over us.  And like the other voice track it speaks at times more loudly than others.  It speaks out when we fail.  But what it says is completely different than the old track.

But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more  Romans 5:20

This new voice track speaks with the tone of grace.  When you fail it now sounds like this:

• I love you.
• I have already forgiven that sin.
• I have already made you righteous.
• I have accepted you and called you My own.
• There is no blame and fault against you.
• Rest in the peace, love, and joy I have for you.

Wow.  This is the new voice line that speaks to us from within us, where God is!  He has cleansed, freed, and released us from our guilt.  To those who will hear and accept His Words there is life!  To those who continue to think He speaks with heavy condemnation, guilt, and demands to toe the line, there is only more discouragement and determination to do better.

With great humility and gratefulness hear the new voice track of your heart.  You are free!  You are loved!  You are forgiven!  You are Mine!

Are you sure Christianity is a “relationship”?

The recent generation has gone to great lengths to say that Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship.  They have sought to make it clear that God is not looking to be approached by formalism and cold traditions.  He is not pleased by rituals and the attempts of man to prove that he is good.  That is true and rightly they have carried the banner of this truth.

As we exist in a culture that now promotes a “relationship” with God, we must be equally careful and clear about what that means.  If we do not carefully understand the kind of experience He invites us to share with them, then we could be making a similar mistake to the previous generation.

When most people think of a “relationship”, they think of two people sharing their lives, their joys, their heartaches, and their experiences.  There is an understood give-and-take.  There is communication.  There is laughter.  There are tears.  Each person seeks to meet the needs of the other.  There is sacrifice and service for one another out of love.

These are all part of relationships as we understand them here on earth.  They come with the parent-child, husband-wife, employer-employee, and friend-friend relationships.  There is sharing of life back and forth.  There are shared responsibilities.  There are rewards for good behavior.  There is common meeting of needs.

This however is not how God relates to us.

God is the source of life.  He is giver of all things.  He does not need anything.  He does not need our love, worship, sacrifice, or performance to make Him happy.  He does not need anything from man to be God.  He does not need our perfection or love before He chooses to love us.

Love, grace, mercy, truth, and so much more emanate from within Him.  They flow from Him in endless supply regardless of whether we deserve them or if we response to Him.  This lavishing source from within Him is what enabled Him to love us while we were still sinners, still enemies, still uninterested, still self-obsessed.  This is how we was able to send His Son to the cross to pay for our sins.  He can do that because life flows from Him.  He is not looking for something in return.

This is how He relates to us.  He lavishes us with His goodness while we are still sinners.  He makes us forgiven and righteous.  He removes the need for anything to have to be done to gain His favor and love.  He finds great delight and pleasure in loving this way.

How are we supposed to respond to this?

There is only one logical and reasonable response to this kind of lavishing love.  To try to do something to deserve it would be insulting.  To reject it would be to scoff at the holy gift of God.  To attempt to pay back would be mockery.  What is the only legitimate response to the overwhelming?

That response is faith.  It is the humble response that accepts as true what has been done.  It is the personal realization and application of God’s heart and actions toward you.  It is the acceptance that I am loved, forgiven, and made righteous because of Christ’s death.  It is the awareness that this is undeserved, unbelievable, and stunning.  This belief changes me.  It sees what seems unnatural, unrealistic, and unseen.  I have been made right with God!

This type of experience – faith as a response to overwhelming graced – is completely different than what we understand as a “relationship”.  This one is lopsided and overwhelming. This one is unlike any other earthly experience we have ever had.  This however is the experience of relating to God.  He lavishes, we humbly receive.  He shows grace, we respond by faith.  He forgives, we forgive others.  He loves, we worship in wonder.

Is Christianity a relationship?  Yes, but it’s unlike any other you’ve every known!

How to Break Habits with New Neural Pathways

Have you ever walked into a room when the power was out and flipped the light switch?  It’s that awkward moment when your habit of turning on the light is more ingrained than the knowledge you have of the power being out.  Weird.  It’s also an example of neural pathways that have formed in your brain.  Scientists have discovered that within the billions of interconnected nerve cells in the brain that new pathways form as we have new experiences.  These experiences become literally hardwired into our brain the more we repeat the behavior.

What about behaviors that we want to change?  What if we have learned and practiced habits that we want to break?  Is there hope?  Is there a way to change the brain’s neural pathways?

Just as bad habits are written into our mind, new life-giving habits can be written!  The answer lies not just in new adapting new behavior patterns, but in a fundamental change in our identity – in a rewriting of how we see ourselves, God, and others.

Many Christian counselor and pastors advocate a common approach to breaking habits.  Sadly, it is an approach that only perpetuates the same addictive behavior.  That approach usually involves:

• guilt and shame for what the person has done or is doing
• a command to not commit the sin or behavior again
• a high standard and listing of what their behavior ought to be
• a system of accountability to make sure they never do the behavior again

And while these may seem like effective measure, they only reinforce the same neural pathways that led the person to the behavior in the first place.  They attempt to bring about new behaviors, but they keep the old neural pathways related to our identity.  Those pathways send messages that say:

• you can’t do anything right
• you’re such a disappointment
• you’re only as good as your ability to do right things
• you need to start doing right things in order to gain the favor of God

If you’ve ever tried this approach, you know the result.  The only way old habits can be broken and new neural pathways formed is for us to have rewrite of our identity that is not focused on the old behavior.  There would have to be a set of experiences that changes not just what we do, but who we are.  Identity before behavior.  This is the only way new neural pathways can be written.

Enter the message of grace.

The grace of God shown to us in Jesus Christ is far more than just a religious message.  It has the power to alter not just our behavior but our identity.  Any kind of religious message that only demands behavior change is weak and ineffective.  Commands, rules and accountability are powerless.

What is powerful is personal and intimate experience with Jesus Christ.  Through what He accomplished on the cross, He makes it possible for us to experience that kind of identity change: forgiveness from our failures and the reality of knowing we are made clean and righteous.  These two truths end the war of guilt, shame, performance, disappointment, fear, and feeling unloved new neural pathways begin to form in my mind that free me from the old voices and pathways that enslaved me.  New experiences write a new heart and mind in me:

• you are loved by God
• you are accepted and forgiven
• you are set free from having to be perfect
• you are made pleasing by Christ

These are completely different neural pathways!  As we follow the pathway of these truths we experience greater life and freedom!  We find not just the change in our behavior, but a change in our identity.  We experience new relationship with God.  We experience new view of ourselves.  We experience exactly what Scripture says:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  2 Corinthians 5:17

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.   Romans 8:5

This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them  Hebrews 10:16

Then we are able to do what we could never do with the old neural pathways.  We can walk by faith, love others, serve others, humble ourselves, forgive, give, be patient, develop new habits, and overcome sin.  We can do new things because at the core of our being our neural pathways have been changed by our experience with Jesus Christ!

 

The Political Party of Jesus

We’ve all heard the phrase, “What would Jesus do?”  I’m sure that when it comes to politics, many Christians have their own opinions about “what Jesus would do” when it comes to the choosing a political party and voting.  But what if the leanings of Jesus were completely different than what we imagined?  Most politically involved Christians have Scripture they use to back their ideas and their reasoning for doing exactly what they think Jesus would do.

A closer look at the Scripture might reveal something different in the leanings, thoughts, and goals of Jesus as He looks at a nation.

Jesus lived in a culture rich with political power and intrigue.  While people did not the right to vote and choose their own leaders, politics still existed.  The political force of the day was power.  Who had the greatest following?  Who had the greatest force?  Who had the power to rule?  The two greatest powers of Jesus’ day were governmental and religious.  They both had political power and persuasion and they both fought against one another.

Into the mix steps Jesus with a growing number of crowds that followed Him.  This made the political powers nervous.  But it gave hope and excitement to the common man.  The current political system was corrupt with greed, power-grabbing, abuse, immorality, and selfishness.  The common people were being taken advantage of, outrageously taxed, and given little freedom.  The government had gotten too big and out of control.  Many thought the time had come to overthrow the powers that be.  They thought Jesus would be their man!  They thought this would be their time!  The crowds got larger.  Discontentment with the current political system grew to a fevered pitch.

What would Jesus do?

He didn’t pick the conservative party.  He didn’t pick the liberal party.  Instead Jesus did something completely unheard of.  He promoted a different form of government.  He promoted a different kingdom.  He prioritized His life toward the advancement of His own kingdom with no interest in being part of the political and governmental affairs of this world.

He advanced this idea with His disciples as He taught them to pray: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Matthew 6:10

He taught His disciples to let this new kingdom be the battle cry as they went city to city: And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  Matthew 10:7

When He faced one of the most politically powerful men in the region He said: Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”  John 18:36

When challenged by the politically powerful Pharisees who feared the potential takeover by Jesus, He said: “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed”  Luke 17:20b

And even when the masses came to push Jesus into a political showdown and takeover, Jesus avoided the situation:  Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.  John 6:15

Even thought there was political corruption Jesus did not take advantage of the groundswell movement.  Even though Jesus would have had the numbers and ability to force a political showdown, He remained focused on something different.  He promoted the advancement of a kingdom that would supersede any human governmental and political force.  He knew that the advancement of His kingdom would bring about far greater good than the advancement of any kind of human form of government.  He knew that unless the hearts of men and women were won, winning a political battle would not bring change to the nation.

Today, as in Jesus day, we are invited to do something different.  We can and should be involved in our nation’s political process because we live in a land that secures that liberty, freedom, and right.  But let us not put our hope in the governments of this world.  Let us not be shaken by who is elected or not elected.  Let us instead focus on the kingdom where One already sits on the throne.  In His kingdom there is life, peace, and power.  We have the privilege of expanding the kingdom by spreading its good news!  There is a King!  There is grace!  All who will enter will find life!  This King is Jesus!  Let us do what He would do!